


Before the End

by maybespyware



Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Death, Death Acceptance, Gen, Mental Breakdown, Mental Instability, but you're free to imagine there is, no relationships - Freeform, old oneshot i cleaned up, slight depictions of death, slight mentions of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:55:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25100506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maybespyware/pseuds/maybespyware
Summary: This wouldn’t be the first time Wilson had been unfortunate enough to starve to death. What was a first for him was Maxwell’s visit.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 21





	Before the End

The shadows, dark and outstretched, seemed to bleed into the forestry surrounding Wilson like a suffocating cloak. They were everywhere, clinging to the outskirts, just beyond where the fire's reach failed to fall. It wasn't just… regular darkness, no, and though Wilson failed to find words to describe it, he knew it was wrong, a deep permeating feeling inside of his very being. 

And so he just opted to close his eyes and remain very still. And the darkness behind his eyelids, it was natural, something he could rationalize and hold in his metaphorical grip on reality. The reflected light of the sun could no longer reach his optical nerves, and thus he could no longer see. It wasn't alive, and shifting. It did not whisper in his ear the sweet lure of the woman in the dark, did not reach for his fire in the hopes to quench it and strand him in the cacophony of silent hurried warnings. And when he thought he saw monsters, real beasts that permeated through his soul, he knew that he was going insane.

Perhaps it was the almost 4 day fast that made the world spin out of focus so violently, and showed him piercing eyes swimming in the corner of his vision. Because dear god was he starving. Berry bushes and crops were suddenly struck with disease, animals ran and hid and never emerged, traps sat empty and forgotten on top of collapsed rabbit holes. In desperation, he had turned on his fellow pigmen for meat. The lack of supplies had left him severely underprepared; Wilson had barely escaped with his life. He'd survived so far on a diet of flower petals and water. Now even the flowers were gone. It was so hopeless, wasn't it? Wilson didn't need to get up and confirm what he already knew to be true: he was out of food. 

He was out of time. 

Wilson took a steady breath, focusing all of his attention on the fire. Bracing for the inevitable was never fun. He just had to focus on the warmth, the brightness as it washed over him in waves. Pretend that there was no pain in his stomach as it begged for sustenance. It would be a slow unpleasant death, and at the very least this world had the decency to provide him with enough so he'd have the luxury of dying next to a fire. 

The scientist was… disappointed. Yes, he was in a considerable amount of anguish, but he'd soon have another chance. Maybe Chester would be waiting for him this time. But the work he'd put in, days spent cultivating a careful garden and a sizable camp, the journals filled with whatever invention or observations he could scrounge out in his free time.

Maybe next time he would just lay down in the grass and let the first thing that found him devour him alive. It would be much less effort than attempting to survive, building structures and putting together somewhat of a life here only for it to be torn out of Wilson’s hands again anyways. What was there to even gain by staying alive? Not his freedom, not his normal life back in the modest house he could barely remember anyways. The only thing that remained in his memories of his existence before the islands was that machine, its grip as he was dragged away into absolute nothingness, and the laugh of that accursed radio.

Despite Wilson’s morbid thoughts, a small smirk crept onto his face. If none of his actions had meaning anyways, then perhaps in his next life he would light up a torch and set the forests on fire. Run until there was nothing left to burn and he collapsed in a charcoaled mess. The night would never be able to touch him. All of the shadow king’s monsters would smoke and combust before they could get a single tooth in him. 

Wilson became so engrossed in this image that he didn’t even notice the fire in front of him begin to sputter out. He only brought himself out of the daydream when he finally noticed the low baying of Hounds sounding through the clearing. Or was it the Hounds? It was hidden under such a thick layer of noise that came from nowhere, a sure byproduct of his dementia. His spear was propped up against the chest across the fire from him, practically reduced to splinters. For once, he didn’t care enough to get up and grab it. Dark figures swirled in the shrubbery, out of reach from the waning light. The scientist shivered, and rested his arms against his knees as he shut his eyes and waited. As cowardly as it was, he couldn’t bring himself to stare into the face of certain death.

“Say pal, looks like you could use a little help.”

The thick, New York accented voice of Maxwell shocked him out of stupor, and he gazed up in fear and anger as he witnessed the vague shapes hidden by the cover of night morph into the outline of the demon as he stepped out from beyond the trees. Now in the open and out in the light, Wilson could see the sharp face of the man, illuminated unnaturally in the orange cast of the dying fire. He wore the same fine-tailored three piece suit, complemented by polished shoes and the thick cigar he chewed between his yellowed teeth. Just as Wilson remembered him from all the times Maxwell brought him back into the world with the same infuriating greeting.

The demon stood there expectantly, arms crossed and a thick smirk as he waited for Wilson to say something. Perhaps gasp or spit out obscenities. The scientist remained quiet as he simply turned away from Maxwell, grunting slightly in exertion as his starved body struggled to move out of the position it had already set itself to die in. He wouldn’t give Maxwell the satisfaction.

“Don’t be that way, pal. I travel all this way to see an old friend and this is what I’m greeted with?” A ring of smoke made its way past his lips. Wilson coughed as the impossibly thick haze choked him. “I thought you were a gentleman.”

"W-What do you want, Maxwell? Here to snap my neck personally this time?" Wilson hadn’t spoken in a long time, never out loud to himself. His voice rasped in his throat, dry from dehydration and the violent hacking coughs he had seconds prior. Maxwell chuckled at the sound of it, obviously savoring the contempt Wilson had still managed to slip in with his words.

“You’d really think I’d stoop that low? How awful of you to insinuate. I’d sooner sic Charlie on you than get my hands dirty.”

Wind rushed past him, a low hiss that tapered off into nothing as it died off. Wilson didn't know who Charlie was. He suspected if Maxwell had his way he never would. Honestly, he couldn't care less.

"I'll make you a deal," Maxwell said, cigar held between his fingers as he eyed Wilson's disheveled form, nose turned up at his condition. 

"Kill me, Maxwell. No deals. I'm done." He looks the demon dead in the eyes, not surprised when he finds no life behind them. Shivers run up his spine, and Wilson realizes he's shaking. From fear, hunger, his looming demise. "Anything you offer will be worse than death." 

"As tempting as that sounds, I'd rather not. I've had my fill of seeing you suffer. You can only watch an ant for so long. No, pal, I'm here to help, to offer you something you could only imagine." Maxwell takes a purposeful drag of nicotine, before he lets it slip from his gloves. The embers on it glow as he raises his foot and gives it a firm, dramatic, stomp. The fire in front of Wilson flares, smoke rising in a dark cloud, making him flinch away from the bright light. "I can offer you purpose." 

Wilson felt a sour tang in his mouth. There was rage, unspeakable fury somewhere deep within him, muted by the exhaustion, the apathy that smothered him like a damp towel. His head dropped into his waiting palms, gripping weakly at his unkempt hair. Laughter bubbled out of him, even though it hurt, even as closed wounds opened again from the intensity of it, until his fragile body was rocking with waves of hilarity. He didn't notice the demon stand by him, inspecting him with an expression that betrayed no outward emotion. 

"When was the last time I heard that?" Wilson began, tone low and dangerous. "When I was mortal? When I was too bright eyed and inexperienced to realize when I was being used?"

Memories of his old life, the ones he could remember, were scattering across his mind. The scientist's laughter had silently turned to racking sobs, tears rolling down his face. He can't stand up properly, so when he tries he merely ends up kneeling and making a fool of himself, but he's too lost in his hysteria to care. A finger is pathetically pointed in Maxwell's direction, shaking so much that he almost drops it. 

"You've already offered me purpose!" Wilson shouts, but it really isn't a shout, his vocal chords too weak to produce more than a hoarse statement. "A machine to end all others. A vessel for the greatest of human genius! Respect, recognition. Knowledge!"

The tears have receded, leaving him feeling dizzy and light headed as he struggles to catch his breath. Wilson recognizes this feeling, this deliriousness. It's the brink of death. Everything he had has been drained out of him. Because he wasn't allowed to have anything, not even the energy to cry. Wilson didn't deserve it. The forest around him swayed, darkening from both the slowly extinguishing fire and the approaching coma he'd soon find himself in. 

"I may have been a fool then, demon, but now you've got nothing else left to take. So either kill me or let me starve to death in peace." His knees refused to carry his weight any longer and Wilson collapsed on his side. Rare, awful silence blanketed the area, and he doesn't know if it's because his ears have stopped working or if it was the work of Maxwell's awful magic. Finally, his pitiful fire gave up the ghost. Shadows shifted as the sharply dressed monster across the camp began walking towards him, fingers idly adjusting his collar, blending in seamlessly to the pitch black dark as the light winked out. The scientist prepared himself. For what, he could only imagine. Claws in his throat, perhaps, or the frenzied dissection of the Grue. 

Something covered him instead. It felt like a blanket, and from the texture on his skin, an expensive one. There was light, light from where, he didn't know. His eyes were too tired to open, mind barely there to register what was happening anymore. 

"Think what you want about me pal. But if you don't have another option. You said it yourself; what more could I possibly take?" Wilson would have never imagined Maxwell's voice as soothing, but he finds he doesn't care what he thinks now. Unconsciousness tugs at him, threatening to pull him under, but he is miraculously awake enough to process Maxwell's every word. "Feel free to go about business as usual, if you'd like. I'm sure there are nastier situations you're dying to get yourself into. But I? I can give you your freedom."

Freedom. Wilson doesn't have it in him to be shocked at what Maxwell is proposing. He turns the word around in his brain, echoing it to himself. Freedom. 

"Simply find me a door. I trust you're familiar enough with the magic here to build yourself a Divining Rod. And then, when you find me again, we'll talk." Then Maxwell is gone. Wilson feels his absence, the hollow sensation in his soul gone. Noticeably, the light disappears with him. 

Freedom. The word is empty and meaningless in his head. It follows him as he nestles into the unnatural darkness, as he falls unconscious under the blanket, and as he is gored on Charlie's claws. 

When Wilson wakes up again, clothes freshly pressed and buttoned, hair wild and clean, reset again for his newest life, no one is there to greet him.


End file.
